FirstLook: Qubbat al-Sakhra, ca. early 20th century

Considered one of the greatest achievements of early Islamic architects, craftsmen and artists, the magnificent interior of the Qubbat al-Sakhra (Dome of the Rock) was built between 688 and 691 ce on Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif by order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik. Its intricate patterns reflect Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine and Sassanid influences, together with bands and medallions of Arabic calligraphy.

To create this unique symmetrical image of the hemispheric ceiling dome, photo restorer and artist Kelvin Bown painstakingly stitched together nine digital scans made from stereoscopic negatives originally taken between 1898 and 1920 by photographers commissioned by the American Colony of Jerusalem.

Produced as a limited edition print, this is one of many historical images of the Middle East that Bown has restored using modern techniques. The results bring renewed clarity, depth, detail and presence to early photographs, illuminating aspects of past ways of life that express the beauty, harmony, diversity and sustainability of the region.

See more of Bown's work at www.reawakeningthepast.com.

The World's Fastest Scientist

Written by Andrew A. Sicree // Photographs by Nik Wheeler

Born in the Nile Delta, Ahmed Zewail became the first scientist to record molecules while they were undergoing chemical reactions that take place in a few millions of a billionth of a second. This established the field of femtochemistry and earned him the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In November 2009, he was appointed one of the first three US Science Envoys to the Middle East, and he passed away on August 2, 2016.

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Creatives

Cave Artists of Sulawesi

Written by Graham Chandler
Photographs and video by Meridith Kohut

When a hand stencil-painting in the caves on this island recently dated to 39,900 years ago, Indonesia took a place alongside France and Spain as a site of the earliest known representational art. Now we must ask not only how and why we began making pictures, but how and why we did so on two continents, at the same time.

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Creatives

If I Forget You, Don’t Forget Me

Photographed and written by Manal AlDowayan

To reconstruct memories of her late father’s generation, the artist and author interviewed her father’s peers and made artifact-based portraits of his “unique generation that saw Saudi Arabia at its poorest and later at its richest,” a generation that understands “what it means to build your dreams from scratch.”

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